Hello there, and welcome to Bottega Zero Waste!
if you are new, my name is Marta,
and in this space I share my tips on how
you can live more zero waste with less.
A couple of weeks ago I have asked you guys on Instagram
which topic you wanted me to film in the next videos,
and by far the most popular topic was
"tips on how to find ingredients zero/low waste to make your own products at home"
Now, as you know, I make most of my bath and beauty products at home,
and so this is a topic that is particularly important for me.
I’ve selected a list of five tips that in my experience have helped me
reduce my waste being in the context of autoproduction
and I really hope you will find these tips really helpful.
And make sure you stick with me until the end of the video
because I have also prepared a surprise for you
that you can grab right at the end of this video.
Tip number 1 “keep it simple"
As you know simplicity is at the core of everything that I do
At the same time, when I formulate the recipes,
I try to keep it as simple as possible.
Because if you think about it, when you have few ingredients in a recipe
then you have more chances of finding these ingredients
packaged in a more sustainable way
as supposed to having like 20-30 different ingredients in a
and then you are gonna have a hard time finding some of these ingredients plastic free.
The key is to find what I like to call “multifunctional ingredients".
These are ingredients that are so versatile
that can be used to build the bulk of a recipe,
without the need of having many different ingredients
that will make up for the same qualities.
Let me give you an example.
Many diy projects include wax
and sometimes wax is really difficult to find plastic free for whatever reason.
And so I like to formulate a lot of my products
using shea butter or cocoa butter
because both shea and cocoa butter have quite a high melting point
and are solid. It is quite easy to find them plastic free.
Shea butter will give that stickiness to your products that you can find in wax.
And cocoa butter will make sure your products will remain quite solid.
There you go, you can create a very satisfactory maybe lip balm or solid lotion.
and yeah! maybe during in the summer, you will have to package it up
perhaps using a reusing tin or a jar
but I think for the rest of the year where the temperature is not that high,
you can definitely get a way without using wax.
Where do you get cocoa butter from?
Let's take a look at tip number 2!
Tip number 2 "buy from bulk stores"
Bulk stores carry a category of ingredients that can be used
both for cooking and for diy recipes.
These ingredients are quite easy to find loose in bulk stores.
Cocoa butter is a good example.
It’s a popular and awesome ingredient
which can be used to make lip balm or solid lotion.
It is hard and brittle by nature,
so it will harden your products
and it also has the wonderful ability to hydrate and nourish the skin.
Other ingredients that are easy to find in bulk stores
powders like for example, arrowroot powder or starches like potato starch.
These powder are used to thicken products like for example deodorant.
Other powders that you can find very easily in bulk stores are
powders like beetroot, spirulina powder, turmeric powder
and these can be used to colour your soaps naturally
or to give a natural color to your lip balms
or even special properties to your creams and lotions.
Tip number 3 "look for sustainable packaging"
Ok, let's say you don't have a bulk store next to where you live
My next tip will be to find ingredients that are packaged in sustainable materials
Some sustainable materials include recycled paper
which you can just compose after you use the ingredients.
or glass jar which you can again recycle or upcycle.
and finally aluminum which is one of the materials are the most easy to recycle.
Tip number 4 "buy in bulk"
Now! this is quite different from buying from bulk stores.
When I say buy in bulk, I mean
buy an ingredient in a very large quantity.
and yes! It might mean you have to turn into buying something packaged in plastic.
We have this concept that plastic is "the enemy"
and that it absolutely has to be avoided 100%
and yes, in a lot of cases, this is true.
On the contrary, if we buy something packaged in plastic
but in a very large quantity,
it might last us for such a long time that
that way we can offset our impact on the planet.
The key here is to do this with an ingredient that
you know you are gonna use a very well for many different products.
and also that it has a good shelf life
Tip number 5 "making your own products is not always the solution"
My last tip for this video would be for you to really think about
if auto producing a particular product would really help you reduce your waste.
So I thought about this because I used to make so many products at home.
and I have actually reduced drastically the amount of products that I create.
Now for example, I only autoproduce my own deodorant
because I can find all the ingredients plastic free.
For example shea butter in paper
or arrowroot powder in a jar from the bulk store.
I also still autoproduce my soap
because I am able to buy organic, fair trade ingredients
from my own suppliers and I buy them in big bulk quantities.
But I do not autoproduce my toothpaste
because I know that the ingredients that I will need to produce that toothpaste<
will not coming in a sustainable packing
and even if I wanted to buy those ingredients in bulk,>
it wouldn't really make sense for me because
I would only use those ingredients for that particular product.
and so I wouldn't really want to buy it in bulk if that make sense.
In that case, I look for a sustainable brand that package
their toothpaste in a sustainable way
for example toothpaste packaged in aluminum
or I buy solid toothpaste
or even toothpaste that comes in compassable and refillable packaging.
If you got to this point, thank you so much. And as promised,
I've included a free PDF with my 10 key ingredients
that you can use to develop very simple recipes.
and in the PDF, I've also included some actual recipes that you can try.
and at the end of the PDF, I've also included a list of worldwide suppliers
that you can buy ingredients from and a lot of these suppliers
also provide sustainable packaging options.
To obtain your PDF, just check the description box below.
and download your guide.
As always, thank you so much for watching
and for more content and inspiration on zero waste living,
you can following me on my instagram @bottegazerowaste
or checkout my website bottegazerowaste.com